The Lost Tribes

The Lost Tribes

The sun was a fiery orb, relentlessly searing the parched earth. A once lush and inviting land now stood barren and burnt. Balish moved quickly from one shaded rocky outcropping to another, his eye's darting about nervously. He was in Anasazi territory now, searching for game, a risk that he felt forced to take as his tribe waited anxiously back at their redoubt in a narrow canyon many miles to the east.

They were starving. His people had suffered for a generation now, not only from the lack of food and water but they were slowly being hunted down and slaughtered year after year. At first they had thought the Anasazi were responsible, but a survivor of a brutal attack managed to describe their assailants before he died.
They were demons he said, with faces made of flint, they came at night with a thundering of hooves and weapons of unknown origin whistling through the air, but not a sound escaped from their stony visages. They dispatched men, women and children without compunction in savage delight. They burnt their homes to the ground, sometimes burning alive the survivors, sometimes torturing and toying with captives for hours before finally ending their suffering in grisly fashion.
The bodies that they found and buried had been smashed and mangled, some with their necks snapped back to rest between their shoulderblades, contorted and defiled. The world had gone from a place of beauty and plenty to one of fear and desolation.

Balish's clan was the last of the Gallina, hidden in a canyon in their last stronghold. Only thirty of them were left, mostly women and children. Balish and the few other men were out now in the scorching heat searching for what food and water they could find. They had always lived in peaceful communion with the Anasazi but since the beginning of the great dry period there close proximity to each other had become more and more uneasy as resources slowly disappeared. Many of the Anasazi of late had also started to fall victim to the demons of the night. Tensions were now at an all time high between their people.

Balish stopped suddenly, a glint of light from just ahead caught his attention. He lowered himself to his stomach and crawled slowly forward, the baking earth burning into his gut, he grimaced silently and inched onward.
Soon he came to a break in the rocky escarpment, an animal trail, recently used crept through the opening into a narrow cavern. The rocky cliff's above converged to create a dome shaped amphitheatre, small breaks in the roof allowed just enough filtered light in so that Balish could see.
Down the sides of the natural room stood statues of magnificent horses many hands taller than any of the horses he had ever seen before. The beasts were covered in a strange armor, like a snakes scales, pitch black as though made from obsidian. Further in, reflecting dully in the broken sunlight, statues of the demons that had been terrorising his people stood silently against the red rocky walls. The dim red glow from the walls seemed to bathe the statues in bloody light. The demon statues also wore the scaled armor like the horses as well as blank masks of stone with only slits for their eye's and which hid their other features. The beasts stood two metres tall and radiated power, their hands and feet ended in webbed and taloned claws.
At the far end of the cavern stood a massive arch, around its outer edge strange heiroglyphs intertwined. Balish stood to his feet and moved silently into the room, his senses heightened by the surge of adreneline rushing through his body. Surely this was the home of the demons who had been slaughtering his people. He approached one of the statues and rapped upon it with the hilt of his knife and was relieved to hear a hollow clink in return, statues they were.
Feeling bolder now Balish approached the massive gate, the strange writing meant nothing to Balish, his people had no written language. He ran his hand over the heiroglyphs that he could reach and as his hand passed over them they seemed to glitter ever so gently, in a fully lightened room he would never have noticed. The rocky wall within the arched door seemed strangely different to the rest of the cavern, duller and its edges soft, as though out of focus, he rubbed his eye's and reached out with his left hand to touch the wall. There was no resistance, his hand disappeared up to his wrist before he suddenly realised what had happened and withdrew his arm with a curse. He looked at his hand, it was unharmed. He eyed the wall with suspicion, and years of ingrained superstition raised itself within his mind, he turned to run.
Perhaps at any other time in history he would have fled in terror, but this was no ordinary time. Balish thought of his clan, hungry and scared, huddling in fear at every sound. He looked again at the wall, breathed deeply and thrusting his knife before him he strode forward into and beyond his world.

Swirling mists cavorted through the tangled underbrush of a lush forest, strange sounds from the treetops reverberated in the damp air. He stood atop a low ridge overlooking a luscious green world, mind numbing scents assailed his nostrils and he looked stricken into the sky, two suns shimmered above, one small and red, the other much like the sun he knew. Balish fell trembling to his knees, surely he had wandered into the land of the Gods, would they strike him down for trespassing?
Soon he relaxed as nothing happened and he stood again to look around at this new world. He now saw animals that he knew, squirrels scurried across branches, a doe wandered into a clearing and then bolted into the brush as she noticed him. Other animals that were not so familiar also caught his eye, but they seemed only interested in their daily existance and paid him no attention.
Below him at the bottom of the ridge upon which he stood he noticed a building, some kind of fort hewn from massive stones, made of obsidian like the armor of the statues. As he stood and watched it seemed to slowly descend into twilight as the larger, brighter sun vanished behind a large range of mountains on the far horizon. The smaller red sun drenched the whole of the land in a rose colored blush and a great door swung open in the fort below.
Balish ducked down behind a tree as six figures on horseback came forth and galloped up the mountain, straight past his supine form and through the arch which existed on this side. Balish waited only a moment after they disappeared through the wall then raced headlong down the slope to the demons building, its giant doorway still standing open. Hugging the wall he moved cautiously within, no sounds reached his ears, no movement either snatched at his vision. He stood in a courtyard of huge proportions, stables lined one side and open doorways the other. Before him stairs ascended to the ramparts and circled the whole structure. All over the walls serpentine figures writhed and coiled, etched into the rock.
Balish moved forward and entered the doorway nearest him. A long passage descended downwards, lit by sconces placed upon the walls at regular intervals. At times the passage curved gently then straightened and there were other doors on opposite sides of the corridor and Balish peered within each. There were kitchens, bedrooms and armoury's with all manner of strange but obviously deadly weapons. At last the passage ended and he stood before a large wooden door, covered in the same strange symbols he had seen on the arch. He pushed gently against the door and it swung inward without a sound.

Cont.............

Sitting with his back to Balish was one of the demons, though it seemed different somehow, smaller maybe, it's scales burnished in the light from the open fire on the far side of the room. Balish was about to close the door and slowly retreat when the creature turned to look at him. He stood frozen with dread as a fearsome looking reptilian face stared into his eye's, unblinking. A large scar traveled down its face from the corner of one eye to the edge of its mouth. Two large fangs protruded from its upper lip, one of them chipped and broken. The creature then motioned for Balish to enter the room and sit in a chair opposite him. His body moved forward not under its own volition as Balish struggled to regain control of himself. He fell into the chair and slumped exhausted from the effort of trying to resist the beast and resigned himself to death, but determined to take the creature with him if he could. The reptile man smiled then and what could only be described as the most unearthly laughter eminated from its slitlike mouth. The creature rose and moved to a small chest in the corner of the room and removed some type of brooch, he moved back over to Balish and placed the brooch on his jerkin. Balish looked at the stone within the golden frame of the brooch, and felt himself falling into a swirling black abyss, before shaking himself quickly awake and looking up into the eye's of the snake man.
It then whispered in a sibilant voice, and Balish could understand it's language.
" So you have come, the prophecy speaks of one from the other world with the courage to come forth", the snake mans eye's peered into his soul as it spoke.
" You have a chance to save your people and doom mine ".
The creature looked into the fire for a while without speaking and Balish found the strength to reply.
" Why do you not slay me, as the others of your kind do".
" They are not my kind", it replied after a moment.
" Many years ago we were a peaceful people and lived in harmony with the world, then a strange blight descended upon us when we ventured into your world for the first time ". A sadness appeared in the reptile mans eye's.
" Evil is a disease that contaminated us and turned our souls black, a contagion borne in the air of your world, a virus if you like that twisted our DNA and has caused my people to devolve into sadistic savages ".
Balish didnt understand some of the words but the meaning became clear as the snake man's thoughts entered his mind.
" My descendants will return soon from their foray into your world, when they do you must return to your people and gather as many as you can. Have your people wait in hiding outside of the cavern that contains the gate one night from now. When my sons return i will give to you the words that will awaken the statues within that cavern. These statues are guardians from an age when we were a peaceful yet powerful race. They will destroy all who are within that room and when the sun rises they will return again to their solid state. This i do to cleanse the anguish of my people. Heed my words and this world will be yours for all of time ".

Balish stood once more before the arch and walked forward, re-entering his world. The rampaging snake men had returned as dawn rose and Balish hurried forth across the arid earth to his peoples hidden home.
At first the people thought he had gone mad from the sun and shunned him. But soon desperation forced them to believe, any chance at salvation must be explored or they were doomed any way. It was decided that though relations with the Anasazi had deteriorated that they must offer these people the same chance at salvation that they had been offered.
Balish went to see the leader of the nearest Anasazi camp and told him of his journey into the other world. The Anasazi shaman looked on in wonder as Balish recounted his tale and then spoke in frenzied whispers to the chieftain. The Anasazi that were close enough to be contacted came with Balish to where his people were hidden across from the statue cavern. As night descended Balish and the Anasazi shaman entered the cavern, and Balish approached each statue with the snake mans brooch in his hand and spoke the words he had been told. Hurriedly they exited the canyon and hid once more amongst their tribes.

The moon rose slowly in the sky, a cyclopean eye looking down at the night drenched land.

The arch within the cavern shivered momentarily as six figures emerged from the rocky wall upon their mounts. Without warning the statues that had normally stood as silent sentinels erupted in a frenzy of merciless destruction. The snake men stood no chance against the stone warriors from another time, their brothers in appearance only. Limbs were rended from torso's, founts of brackish green blood spewed from severed artery's, soaking into the parched earth. Horses screeched in terror as riders were torn from their saddles and trampled into the ground, the sound of bone and gristle being crushed resounded across the still night air and echoed out to where the Gallina and Anasazi cowered in fear.
Soon a deathly silence descended across the night, the towering cyclops above them stared down unblinking.
Dawn appeared as a rosy hue in the far distance and the people emerged from their rocky hidey holes and cautiously approached the entrance to the cavern. Balish and the shaman entered first and ushered the people quickly forth and soon they all stood huddled before the arch. Balish looked at his people and smiled, then strode forward through the wall.

Deep below the fortress in the room where he first met the snake man Balish sat with his back to the door. A fire burnt in the open hearth, embers skittered on the warm updraft, then drifted as ash up through the chimney in the ceiling. Sitting opposite him was the snake man, his skin an even more sickly pallor than it had been the last time.
" This world is yours now and i will soon leave, back through the arch into your world. When i have gone you must destroy the gate, take what heavy objects you can and erase the glyphs, once this is done none can enter or leave this world. Learn from the mistakes of my people and cherish what you have, there is enough life in this world without the need to roam across the void into other lands. Live in peace with nature and she shall hold you close to her heart, this is the lesson we never learnt ".
Balish stood and helped the old serpent to his feet and they walked upward into the world which his people had now claimed as their own. When they reached the arch Balish clasped the old snake mans hands in his own and whispered his thanks. Red serpentine eye's looked back into his own and for the first time that Balish had seen, blinked moistly.

The Anasazi hunter perched atop the ridge watched as the creatures from some netherworld nightmare emerged from the hidden opening in the cliff face below. The creatures rode upon massive mounts, their faces blank except for slits where their eye's should be, their armorlike skin glinting dully in the sunlight.
The Anasazi hunter hurried back to what remained of his tribe. He had tracked the other missing Anasazi clans spoor to that hidden cavern and then seen the beasts that emerged. The Anasazi decided then and there to leave the demon haunted lands and migrated southward, as far as possible from the direction the snake men had taken.

On a horse in the lead sat one of the creatures, but without a mask, a large scar wound its way down its face, seperating the scales. It seemed old but it had a distinctly determined look upon its face as it led the entourage of nightmarish creatures slowly northward. One sun shone high above beating down upon the land and all of God's creatures.

Two thumbs up, m4s. A wonderfully colourful description of a terrible time.

I honestly enjoyed reading this with my morning cup of coffee. The links gave it substance and the reptillians gave it an interesting angle.

Thanks for the writing.

Good story Mojo4Sale. I too had a cup of coffee and that story to start my day. And I like a nice little read of a morning. Your is an excellent way to start the day.

Thank you both, glad to be of service with your morning ritual. Though i guess its a fairly bleak little tale to start a new day.

Cheers mojo.

I made myself a cup of coffee before I started reading it. Great story!

Thanks Hellmutt, maybe i should be getting a kickback from Moccona or Riva!!
Nice to get good feedback, cheers.